


Through Glass

by Fweeble



Series: Cantabile Dreams [3]
Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: 2nd person POV, Ayato PoV, F/M, High School Classmates' PoV, M/M, Unbeta'd, Unrequited Love, Wakes & Funerals, drabble length, outside pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-23
Updated: 2015-10-23
Packaged: 2018-04-27 15:57:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5054884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fweeble/pseuds/Fweeble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s a conclusion everyone comes to eventually.</p><p>Nagachika likes Kaneki. Over the moon in love, even. The kind of infatuated that reduces normal guys into dopey, slightly idiotic fools but instead transforms Nagachika into some kind of finely honed android perfectly capable of discerning Kaneki’s every want and need and ensuring the other man gets it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Through Glass

It’s a conclusion everyone comes to eventually.

Nagachika likes Kaneki. Over the moon in love, even. The kind of infatuated that reduces normal guys into dopey, slightly idiotic fools but instead transforms Nagachika into some kind of finely honed android perfectly capable of discerning Kaneki’s every want and need, and ensuring the other boy gets it.

So it’s troublesome, really, because Nagachika is a great guy, and an even better friend, but he’s also in gay love with his best friend, and, if the whispers are true, has been since he was eight. It’s troublesome, because for ten minutes after someone makes the realization, there’s that irrational dread that  _hey, maybe he will fall in love with them too_. But then Nagachika inevitably says something Kaneki-related, and that laughable worry flies out the proverbial window at Mach speed. As if Nagachika would notice anyone whose name wasn’t Kaneki Ken, who lived with his nose perpetually in some obscure book or another, and quite possibly too awkward to function.

The most troublesome thing, really, is when everyone’s girlfriend or crush starts realizing that Nagachika is absolutely smitten with his bookworm of a best friend. That’s when the comparisons start.

 _If only you paid as much attention as Nagachika_ , they sigh.  _He’s so attuned to Kaneki. I wish you were like that._

Things get worse, because, while Hide is undeniably in love with Kaneki Ken, he’s also a complete flirt.

So the blond smiles his trademark megawatt smile and is all sorts of kind and genteel before throwing out a compliment that turns a girl’s cheek all warm and flushed, and then some of the girls start shooting speculative glances and musing: “Is Nagachika-kun really gay?”

It’s all anyone can do to resist throwing themselves at Nagachika and insist he stop ruining their love lives on pain of death. Or intense torture. Or an empty wallet, because he’ll be paying for their wooing gifts as they try to entreat their girlfriends from abandoning them for the painfully oblivious Kaneki-sexual they are starting to consider.

All Nagachika ever does is laugh. “Of course she won’t leave you,” he always says. “Especially not for me. Besides, she’s crazy about you.”

And, somehow, what he says always comes true. No one’s girlfriend ever abandons them for Nagachika, even if some of them do for other, greener, pastures. But never for Nagachika.

It’s an unspoken conclusion that everyone comes to. Even the girls know.

Nagachika will never fall in love again.

Nagachika will only ever love Kaneki.

So maybe it becomes a thing for everyone to secretly call them the  _married couple of class C,_  and maybe they’re all waiting for Kaneki to finally catch a hint and realize that Nagachika is more than in love with him, because it stopped being cute ages ago. It’s painful watching Nagachika follow Kaneki around, heart in his eyes, in his throat, in his hands, as Kaneki continues to meander through life completely unaware.

He’ll catch on eventually, right?

He has to. Kaneki isn’t stupid.

They say that as they graduate high school and scatter –to different universities, to different careers, to different cities.

Eventually, it’ll happen, right?

Kaneki will open his eyes and realize everything he’s ever wanted or needed is right in front of him, and they’ll become a real couple.

 

  
  
  
  


Nine years later, as they watch Kaneki wait for his bride to walk down the aisle, everyone fidgets in their seats, throwing awkward glances at one another.  _This isn’t right, is it? Surely he’s not going to go through with it._

_What about Nagachika?_

When Kaneki says his vows and kisses his bride, Nagachika smiles harder than anyone else, claps harder than anyone else. His heart shatters more completely than anyone else's.

And everyone is left wondering how they couldn’t see this end.

 

 

 


End file.
